They had failed to pay rent on a previous property of $2,200. Not paying rent of course makes it hard to gain a rental property.

They damaged their last property so badly the cleaning and repair costs were in excess of $1,500

Also buried in the story is the detail that they had turned down an offer to stay at someone’s house – preferring to be “independent” and live in a tent.

Another aspect that does not add up in the story is the assertion that one partner works full-time and the other is on a benefit. As far as I know you can’t be on a benefit if your partner is in full-time work. You can receive WFF and welfare assistance – but not be receiving a main benefit.

I have no doubt there are many families in Christchurch who are really struggling with accommodation. But media should report all the relevant facts – not just run a story probably handed to them by a local MP – without doing any research on it.

A number of issues with your post David.
When did a list MP become a local MP?
This story was shredded within minutes of appearing on Stuff yesterday by dozens of citizens who now know that our media are untrustworthy hacks.
The list MP has made matters much worse for this family of vandal fraudsters. No doubt the DPB will be stripped in the morning as will the priority position on the housing list. And if charges of fraud are not brought Paula needs an uppercut. The churnalist who was sold the story should quit and apply for a job in a fast food restaurant
And national probably gets a thousand votes more than they would have because Poto whatshername is a moron trying to sell Ferals as saints.

Northland Wahine

Why would anyone take a rental property at $500 if they couldn’t afford it?

I’ll admit, I haven’t read the story so I have no idea how many kids are involved, so no idea what the family would be recieving in family tax credits. But I don’t need to know way too many crying poverty need to get their priorities sorted financially. Your kids need a roof over their heads, appropriate clothing, food in their stomachs. Strangely enough, they don’t need cigarettes, big flash cars to ride in, tattoos or a 50″ TV. Oh wait…that would be their parents.

All_on_Red

nickb

I wonder what disciplinary action, if any, the reporter will be getting.

I mean really, this reporter has tried to spin a sob story about this “deserving” family that smeared shit and spew over the last rental property, left the landlord $4k out of pocket, got another person to sign up to the property (which suggests this isn’t their first time they have vandalised a rental) and, just to top it all off, they admit to committing benefit fraud.

If I did the research my job requires as appallingly as this reporter did I’d be gone.

Feel sorry for the kids though. Sad they are growing up in terrible conditions because of having fuckwit parents.

tvb

These people are a bad risk for rental accommodation. They have probably been blacklisted for rent arrears. Who wants them? Is that the role of state/council housing. To house the pigs and the meth addicts? There are those who say house the children in foster homes and the Adults can live on the streets.

OneTrack

itstricky – except one of these is a journolist employed by a media organisation, the other is a commenter on a blog.

But I see you expect little from our hard-left msm either if you consider those two on the same level. Never mind, if they work hard, they too can get their dream job of being a Labour Party/Green Party press secretary, which seems to be where most of these partisan hacks move on to.

itstricky

Well apart from the moral expectation that people will live by rules they expect others to, you may be right.

The case being what it you imply it is I don’t expect, therefore, the blogs such as KB and WO to pronounce themselves as guardians of the “truth” media “outlets” replacing the old guard. But they do. And then they change the rules when things go wrong viz a. The ferral fulla who killed himself. You can’t make your own rules.unless you express it as your personal opinion and not as if you are the white knight riding in to save the day which is what Farrar has implied he and WO are doing here. And then adding a speculation as to who the source is because it happens to be politically convieninet.

Hard left MSM? Don’t make me laugh. The lefties deride the MSM as right wing.

Apart.from that you’ve got a helluva lot of assumptions in there buddy. Happen to think it was a shocking article obviously trying to get popular through delibaretly missing important aspects of events.

“if they work hard, they too can get their dream job of being a Labour Party/Green Party press secretary, which seems to be where most of these partisan hacks move on to.”
BINGO
I see a few comments above that are playing the left right game.
Let me spell it out for you fucking morons;
The previous tenancy was signed by a third party. This would have been done to avoid the landlord discovering the truth about these criminals
They trashed the house and short paid the rent
After the last sap relative lied to get them a house and lost the bond there will be nobody left to lie for them
They have lied to try and get higher on the list for a state house, due to the fact that no private landlord will give them a go
She is stealing the DPB. This should result in fraud charges.
The lefty MP who gave this lie to a naive junior reporter has actually made things much much worse for the poor kids of these criminal vandals.
She should offer them a room at her place.

greenjacket

The reporter, Ashleigh Stewart, is depressing typical of most journalists in NZ papers. While she has a diploma in journalism, she evidently does not think a journalist has to check their sources – in this case, for example, check with the landlord that the story she was being spun was legit. Or ask the sources questions such as: “If you are in such poverty why do you choose to have two cars and spend money on luxuries?”. One really wonders what on earth they teach in the Diploma of Journalism.
And the editor of The Press then let such a substandard article be published.
The lack of professional standards in the mainstream media never ceases to amaze me.

It is worth knowing that Christchurch is in terms of income average way down on Wellington, and Auckland, or at least it was..
Also those lower rentals over on the East zone side have disappeared into the red zone.
This meant the average rental went up, over here in the Central and the West
The motel type fees for homes temporary for earthquake refugees sound high, but the occupancy rate can be 50% or less.
There are over 1100 rentals available on Trade Me here mostly $400 up.
The owner gets to pay power and Internet as well, in most earthquake rentals,. This is Christchurch.,.
Its cold They tenants switch the heaters on when they come in and leave it on think $250 per month power and $150 for internet phone
So many owners have switched back to longer term rentals, less overheads and unoccupied time.
When people criticize our home rental rates here in my home,, I show them the journal ledger with costs included, and they gulp.
I have my gent coming round to help the tenant each week. There is a lot of work. Think another $150 per month.
Tenants do not mow lawns and do not keep the place well, you have to do it for them.
The Christchurch Press have been running sob stories three years now. Mostly garbage.
Gerry Brownlee is completely up to date with the facts of rentals in Christchurch.
My costs are about 50% of the rental. Yes it seems a lot, but the facts are the facts .
A friend of mine needed $16,000 to repair damage to her home by a bad tenant.
I could not see her books but I took her at word.

When this came on my radar I went to trademe for rent CHCH under $400 with two bedrooms and had 119 to choose from.
I know two BRs is not ideal for two adults and 3 teenagers but it must trump a tent at estimated $450 pw in ammenity charges at a camp ground.

itstricky

Yes I know. It has me scratching my head. Someone at The Standard accused National Radio of being right wing.

I have said this previously – the main issue with the MSM is not that it is biased. It is simply that it is awful.

They’ve got it exactly square down the middle, or they’ve got it soooooo bad that they’ve confused everyone.

Either way, they have charters and rules. And they don’t pick ‘n’ mix the rules depending on what kind of fire they are under. Unlike WO, as prime example. So who’s the source then? Anyone done any “research”? Or do we just chuck that in for political dramatic effect?

Left Right and Centre

Judith – who should pay the $1 500 fix up cost, huh ? And unpaid rent. It wouldn’t matter – $150 or $15K. It’s the attitude. We’re very sorry – we’ll do our best to pay it – and we’re not complaining about living in a tent because we know how and why we got here and accept it.

I’ll come round to your place and piss all over your house interior – just $1 500 worth – and you tell me how bad it is.

I’ll probably end up in a tent. I always think what do you do with people who can’t live in a place without destroying it ? They should end up in a tent. What else can you do with them ?

And the media – well – you get what you pay for. I’m paying nothing directly for all the news coverage. So I shouldn’t expect much back. It’s probably pretty good when you think about it in relation to what you pay. Helps if like most on KB you’ve got a brain and can smell the shit.

dime

mjw

dime – You could emigrate. Or your could propose eugenics. Or you could try to fix the problem. Or you could deny the children of these people the opportunity for upward mobility through decent food, housing, education and health?

itstricky

Lr&c. For what is worth, they deny pissing on the house, they broke “a couple of furnishings that they couldn’t afford to replace”, the guy’s boss says he’s”not that bad” (all paraphrased of course) and that they weren’t looking for sympathy just to draw attention to Chc (which the rest of the country does seem to have forgotten a little). I’m not sure anyone can believe Stuff on those points but that is what the “real” people in the story say – it’s a hell of a lot more boring than WOs “scum of the earth” and heaps harder to fly off the handle as a landlord yourself but.. ..that sounds like real life to me, not a story manipulated by either Stuff or Cameron Slater.

I see that $450.00 is for cleaning – along with an additional $130 for rubbish removal
Cleaner’s don’t generally charge a high hourly rate – I pay mine $27 pr plus gst– so by this measure I gauge 16 hours cleaning – or 2 cleaner’s taking 8 hours (a full day) to clean a 4 bed roomed house with only 1x bathroom . That signifies an entire top- to -tail property cleaning job was required and the tribunal will only accept written receipts, invoices or quotes in evidence of a claim so maybe it was as bad as the LL purports

RRM

sassycassy –

I notice there’s a gross arithmetic error on the first page of that tribunal report, they’ve ADDED ‘Less bond received’ to the total owing for cleaning / repair bills to get that total of $4,795 when presumably it should have been SUBTRACTED to give a total owing of $2695??

Not that it takes anything away from the obvious reality of the situation, but it’s interesting nonetheless..